Hello again : )
After around 4 years and limited time to make my 12 inch meade take a sharp photo I gave up . Understanding that I bought the wrong telescope for astrophotography I bought a SW Esprit 150 ed .
I got it on thursday , set it up on thursday night and tested it this morning from the lounge room looking through a very clean window .
I followed the intructions and found out that back focus was 10mm too far away and got a blurry image .
I pulled it apart and re-assembled it for visual observation . I inserted the factory eyepiece , blurry . I then inserted an Explore Scientific 30mm eyepiece and still blurry .
The only thing I can put it down to is heat currents but I really don't know .
Any ideas would be appreciated .
It's because I remember a long time ago trying to use my scope through a window and wondering what was wrong with it before I realised the problem was the window. It's not optically flat, or aligned to the optical train. As soon as I moved outside, it was perfect. Worth a try, anyway.
Well well well , who would have thought that a window could make such a difference .
Thank you Marcus and I appreciate everyones input and replying so quickly .
I hope I can contribute something here at some stage .
If you setup on a hard surface bricks, pavers, concrete etc early in the evening, you might have to wait for them to cool before worrying about wobbly views at high mag.
If you setup on a hard surface bricks, pavers, concrete etc early in the evening, you might have to wait for them to cool before worrying about wobbly views at high mag.
Thanks Steve . I used to be on concrete now I'm on grass : )
I'll try and squeeze a picture out of it tonight .
Thanks again everyone !
Before I read all of the responses, this was going to be my answer. Take it outside, don't shoot or observe through a window. Despite how clean it may be, a window is not an optically corrected piece of glass. There are varying thicknesses throughout and each small area can act as a kind of prism, refracting light in all directions. It may not be discernible to the naked eye and the glass may well be clean but there's a lot going on inside its structure to distort a magnified image viewed through it.
Here is a screenshot of my second shot from this scope last night .
Set up on a SW AZ-EQ 6 GT , polar scope aligned , 2 star alignment . Prime focus , field flattener , 3 minute unguided unprocessed . Canon 5Ds , ir filter removed , light pollution filter .
The screenshot loses the vividness and clarity and looks dull compared to the original but I'm happy .
